There was an air of festivity on Tuesday night at the opening of the Gate Theatre's Christmas show, owing partly to an early yule-tide mood, but mainly because the Gate had recently pocketed the prestigious Critics Award at the Melbourne Festival. Tuesday's offering was a sumptuous production of Michael Rudman's The Heiress, an adaptation of Henry James's Washington Square with Donna Dent as plain-Jane Catherine Sloper and Des Cave as her blustering but well meaning father.
Even the most glitteringly-apparelled of the theatre-goers failed to out-shine the gorgeous silken concoctions on stage, dreamed up by costume designer, Sally Turner - who worked on Jane Campion's recent film, A Portrait Of A Lady.
Enjoying the show were Gay Byrne (wearing a sensible turtleneck sweater under his jacket) and Kathleen Watkins, Gerry and Morah Ryan, Louis le Brocquy and Anne Madden, theatre director Ben Barnes, and chairman of the Arts Council Ciaran Benson. Artist Bernadette Madden came with Brid O'Siadhail, whose husband, poet Micheal O'Siadhail, was unable to be there: he was flying home from a tour of the US promoting his book, The Fragile City.